The man to put government on fast track

“The bottlenecks need to go so the delivery of government services is made faster.”

Nripendra Misra, who seems set to take over as principal secretary to the prime minister, Monday said his immediate focus will be on getting the agenda of the new government implemented, something which has hobbled the outgoing regime.

Misra, who was at Gujarat Bhawan on Monday morning, from where Narendra Modi has been working for the past few weeks, told The Indian Express, “The bottlenecks need to go so the delivery of government services is made faster.”

However, the UP cadre officer of 1967 batch said it was too early to discuss in more detail the way the Prime Minister’s Office would function to make this happen. Significantly, for a government that is banking on riding on advances in information technology and for which decisions on spectrum issues will be critical, the appointment of Misra would open up for Modi a huge source of information on the sector and on corporate battles within it.

Misra, who met Modi last week, said he was subsequently informed the PM would want him to lead his office. Incidentally, Misra had, during the last year of the NDA government, worked as telecom secretary under the then minister Arun Shourie.

More than what he would bring to the table, the detailed knowledge of critical economic ministries, Misra’s key ability is his bipartisanship that made both the NDA and then the UPA regime offer him key portfolios.

He was chairman of Telecom Regulatory Authority of India from March 2006 to 2009 in the UPA years. During the NDA years, Misra was part of India’s negotiating team at the WTO under the then commerce minister Arun Jaitley.

Born on March 8, 1945, Misra holds a postgraduate degree in Chemistry and in Political Science & Public Administration from Allahabad University.